Increasing the efficiency and effectiveness of learning for first year students through Supplemental Instruction

Developmental educators have a historic opportunity to reinvent themselves as resources for the entire campus -students and faculty alike -in partnering with the new enriched learning environment. The learning process must be expanded beyond the traditional classroom walls. Additional partners must be added to the learning environment. The Supplemental Instruction (SI) program serves as a catalyst for an improved and effective learning environment. SI is flexible to meet the learning needs of students and compliment an enriched learning environment managed by the classroom professor. Through its use, the efficiency and effectiveness of learning can be improved. A New Emphasis for Higher Education Some educational leaders proclaim a new emphasis is taking root in higher education. They expose the time honored myth that teaching and learning are two sides of the same coin. How can we be teaching if students are not learning, as the old saying goes? The answer is simple: Some students are ready for the curriculum; others are not. Unfortunately, the typical professor cannot design the perfect lesson that will bridge the gap among the students in class, and cannot construct or buy the perfect test that will show the differences. Therefore, if it is all up to them, higher education must admit defeat. This new change in emphasis of the education model is reflected in several areas. The first area concerns the central focus of education. Rather than the traditional teacher-centered model, the focus shifts to being learning-centered. Instead of the focusing on the broadcaster of information, it is now on effectiveness of the transmission process. The traditional instructional model encourages an increase in the quantity of information that is presented to students and use of new instructional technologies to transmit it. After a long period of focusing energies and committing scarce resources to improving teaching, many bruised and battered educators are turning their attention to improving the efficiency and effectiveness of the learning environment. Rather than examining how much information was delivered, the question is how much does the student understand. This new emphasis embraces the appropriate use of state-of-the-art technology to enhance instruction delivery. But not to the extent that students are overwhelmed with content without a corresponding learning environment that insures mastery learning. A second dimension of the new education model regards measuring the effectiveness of education. Have students deeply understood and mastered the material? Can students demonstrate this knowledge through the ability to discuss the material in their own words and to be able to transform it into novel applications and expressions? The traditional periodic major examinations, although perhaps effective in assessing the degree to which students have copied a field of data, are insufficient measures of this level of learning. The new model uses continuous classroom assessment through both formal and informal means to provide feedback to both the students and the instructors concerning the effectiveness of the learning. The old model made the assumption that if teachers broadcast information, it would be received